


it was almost like a song

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drunkenness, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Karaoke, POV Alternating, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9189212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Written for the Johnson & Coulson fanworks exchange. Prompt = Karaoke nights





	

**one way or another**

It’s not that it’s something so extraordinary.

He knows Hartley, Idaho and Hunter had their karaoke nights when visiting the base, and that tradition was picked up again with Bobbi’s arrival, much to Mack’s eternal eye-rolling (but with his constant presence, nonetheless). Coulson had been mostly out of the Playground when that started and honest? He thinks people just didn’t want to ask.

But “Jeff” thought it would be a good idea to recover the tradition, of course he did, of course _Jeff_.

Nobody is very much into it at first - Daisy is shrinking herself more than usual, though he doesn’t think that’s possible - but predictably most of them end up pretty happy about this new SHIELD “task”.

Even though Coulson is not as good at being invisible as Daisy he can still manage to stay behind the couch, smiling approvingly at every song, drinking three beers, and basically going unnoticed the whole evening. Daisy stays peripheral - as she usually does these days, Coulson notices. In another time she would have… He could go and try to coax her into participating but, what’s the point in dragging her into the group, if it’s not ready? Or if she doesn’t want to go back to that life, that dynamic? Coulson keeps quiet - throwing a glance now and then her way - and watches the rest of the team sing and enjoy themselves.

He had guessed the choice of Blondie would fall upon May, as he’s pretty sure it’s the only music she knows. But it’s Agent Piper - both delighted and embarrassed to be invited to the event - who sings “One way or another”. Again Coulson’s gaze drifts to Daisy, as it would many times during the night. She has an odd expression on her face, as if something is bothering her. Maybe it’s the aggressive nature of the lyrics, he reasons, as Daisy is no stranger to people set of having her “one way or another” - Coulson would rather not think about that, he never liked the song anyway. Maybe it’s just that it’s a love song, after all, and Daisy lost her boyfriend less than a year ago. Her expression fades into the pensive, rather than the troubled, and Coulson is relieved.

FitzSimmons have terrible taste in music (Kylie Minogue? Really? _Both_ of them? Okay, Coulson might be a bit of a snob when it comes to this) and the end up doing a duet version of “Royals” - which Coulson, who knows exactly how many acres the Simmons’ country house occupies and how little removed Jemma is from an actual British title, finds annoyingly ironic, but at least he appreciates they are the ones showing the most enthusiasm. Fitz was the one who got them the latest tech karaoke machine.

Afterwards he catches up with Daisy, who seemed as unimpressed by the whole thing as he was. They share a conspiratorial smile of disdain when they meet in the hallway.

“The Director’s idea?” she asks.

Coulson coffs. “So very much. I told him this wasn’t summer camp but…”

“No, it was a good idea.”

“But you were dragged into it.”

“Yeah,” Daisy admits. “But it wasn’t too bad.”

“But you didn’t sing.”

She steps back, raising a gentle _how dare you_ eyebrow at him.

“Neither did you,” she argues.

 

**I’ll stand by you**

On New Year’s they get a repeat, with the extra embarrassment of the Director (and his tone deaf assistant Agent Assistant Suit) making an appearance, along with a dozen more agents. A team building exercise, Mace had said. Daisy doesn’t feel like building anything. She gets moody on Christmas, she knows.

She could excuse herself - but she doesn’t want to raise that kind of alarm with the team, and after all Quake is supposed to be “collaborative”, isn’t that how Mace put it recently? No more lone wolf. Not even on karaoke nights.Specially not on karaoke nights.

She could drink, and she is tempted to, specially when Mace and Agent Anderson start doing Britney Spears together. But the quantity of alcohol required to erase _that_ image from her mind would mean she’d lose control, too, and she never liked drinking that much. Now less than ever. She sits quietly on the arm of a couch, next to Mack, who seems to be enjoying it well enough, once the initial second hand embarrassment passes. But he lets her be, which is what she wants.

It’s easier this time, because there are more people here.

Easier to just slip into a quiet, dark corner, like last time.

It’s not like she is a party-pooper; she is not having a bad time, she enjoys seeing everybody have a good time. There’s champagne this time around - Daisy declines a glass, she only uses alcohol for its pain-killing properties these days - so everyone is a little bit happier than last time, okay, some of them (not naming names but… _Jemma_ ) are A Lot happier than last time. Daisy is content with watching.

This time Coulson sings - maybe egged on by their conversation weeks earlier - and Daisy tries hard not to notice how he keeps looking at her while he sings. Or maybe she is just imagining things. It’s difficult to be sure of this stuff, with the way her brain works (or sometimes _doesn’t_ work, that is). She more or less recognizes the song, but she has to squint and look at the title in the menu. The Pretenders. _I’ll Stand By You_. The lyrics are simple enough but, she doesn’t know why, they get to her. Coulson has a nice singing voice. Not polished or showy, just… nice. Very much like him. Nice. It makes her smile. He keeps looking at her - _if you’re mad, get mad, Don’t hold it all inside, come and talk to me now_ and surely Coulson just picked the song at random, it might be that someone else picked it for him. And among all the strangers and junior agents (though most of them with higher security clearance than Coulson and her) no one seem to think this is something out of the ordinary, or that Coulson is doing something odd.

She must be imagining things.

Except, at the end of the night, Coulson seeks her out - again, she has the feeling he did that last time? Not that Daisy minds, it’s just that she’s noticed.

“So what did you think?” he asks.

“You have a nice voice,” Daisy says, because it’s true.

He looks slightly disappointed by her reaction (or lack of). Again, she’s probably imagining things, and Coulson didn’t sing for her, neither is he expecting her to comment on it now. He seems to make a conscious effort to change his expression. He smiles, a bit weakly.

“Now it’s your turn.”

“My tu- oh no you don’t want to hear me sing,” she says. She knows her voice is not horrible, but she is too shy for karaoke. Yeah, she knows, Quake shy? Most people wouldn’t suspect it.

“Oh I’m pretty sure I do,” he replies. She has been watching him, he didn’t drink either, so this is perfectly sober Phil Coulson saying he’d like to hear her sing.

Uh.

 

**cerca del corazón**

“I need a drink,” Mack says, uncharacteristically. 

“I know a place,” YoYo says.

And Daisy and Coulson, bruised and smelling of burning things, are too tired to do anything but follow.

No one wants to just go back into the Quinjet and to DC after such a close call of a mission, after such a personal mission.

YoYo finds them a decent joint - this is her city, after all. It’s pretty packed, which Coulson has not expected, yet they don’t seem to raise any suspicion. They were already in undercover clothes and no one ever suspects Daisy is the famous (or infamous, depending on where you are) “Quake” when she is in her civilian clothes.

Feeling more like soldiers than spies, they drop on the nearest table and Mack goes procure some alcohol, fighting the crowds.

They drink the first round in silence, and then, when the adrenaline is beginning to turn into a nice sense of companionship (Coulson loves being on the field, he can’t help it), they start replaying the mission, talking animatedly, finally reading. Shot after shot, he thinks it’s the most he’s ever seen Daisy drink - and he gets it, why she wouldn’t want to drink too much, specially now. She wraps her arm around around Coulson’s as they listen to YoYo tell the tale of how she got away Mack from the explosion, even though they were all there. Coulson can smell the ashes on Daisy’s hair and if he turned his head a bit to the left his nose would brush against her forehead, that’s how close they are sitting.

He does not turn his head a bit to the left.

He and YoYo bring the next round to the table.

“Mira, una máquina de karaoke,” YoYo says. When she is tired she slips into Spanish easily, and the rest just have to catch up with her.

Mack passes his hand over his face, but YoYo insists, tugging at his arm.

“Come on, Mack, let go,” she says.

Of course they all do what Elena says, that’s usually the case, Coulson wonders how that came to be.

She and Mack set the bar very high (or very low, Coulson is not sure what’s the correct way of seeing this) by singing their way through three consecutive Latin ballads.

Daisy asks him to translate the words from Spanish, and Coulson does the best he can, it feels strange leaning to talk in her ear, over the noise of the place, words from a love song, the singer lamenting that her beloved is going away, Coulson mostly knows basic stuff like “dream” or “storm” or “heart”.

They don’t have many songs that aren’t in Spanish, and Coulson doesn’t feel _that_ confident. Daisy goes through pages of choices and settles for a 90s hit, “Dreams” by the Cranberries, while he and Mack suffer through joint rendering of “California Dreamin’”.

It’s almost morning when they leave the place, or rather stumble out of the place. He stays a little behind, to walk with Daisy, he seeks her out (is he doing that too much these days? does she mind? has she even noticed?).

“You save the world _and_ you sing like that?” Coulson tells her, clicking his tongue, complaining. “It’s unfair.”

_She_ is unfair, of course, and he is probably a bit drunk, or he would never say such a thing.

YoYo is _very_ drunk, and as they almost reach the plane she hugs them both, and at the same time, bringing the three bodies together, mumbling about how she loves them both a lot and “you have to be happy, sois unas personas maravillosas, I want you to be happy” just as Mack laughs and peels her away from Coulson and Daisy, one arm around her shoulders, telling her to “come here, maravillosa, let’s get you to bed” and Coulson and Daisy smile at them and then at each other, falling behind again, lingering in the dark and nice Bogotá night.

 

**more than this**

As if haunted by some karaoke curse they have ended up, again, together, in a karaoke booth. This time they are on the other side of the world, a perk of the hotel they are staying in for the Inhuman rights conference Mace is making them go to -or allowing them to go, except Daisy can’t have any kind of official role, of course, she is just here to listen and shut up.

She is not very good at listening and shutting up.

Director Mace, on the other hand, is very good at chastising.

Daisy is _really bad_ at being chastised.

The karaoke is Coulson’s brilliant idea to deflect and Mace went for it, inviting the whole delegation over. He did that white dude’s thing where he assumed just because they are in Asia all the hosts would be crazy about karaoke. It had been a disaster and Daisy had enjoyed seeing the Director faux-pass his way through the whole evening. 

She and Coulson have been left alone at the end of the evening, Daisy didn’t really feel like following the rest and say some diplomatic goodbyes. They are on the twenty-something floor and the view is breathtaking. It feels so quiet here, and, alone with Coulson, she feels a wave of relief at not having to play along, put on a smile for strangers.

“We should probably take a stab at it,” Coulson says, gesturing towards the screen.

“What? Now? _Nooo_.”

He smirks at her, the creaks around his eyes deepening.

“I think you should loosen up a bit,” he tells her.

“Oh, so that’s how it is?”

Coulson nods.

He gestures for her to come over and sit next to him.

She does, not questioning the impulse. She didn’t exactly have a good time tonight, PR is not her thing, but she always has a good time hanging out with Coulson. And they seem to be having some kind of karaoke-themed thing going on these days. She remembers him in Colombia, a bit drunk, and offering to translate the song YoYo and Mack were doing, some pop tune in Spanish. Daisy didn’t really care but he made her laugh leaning into her and whispering corny words into his ear.

Coulson starts flipping the pages of the song list, the thick book between them, over their knees. They try to find something fitting. Naturally most of the choices are in Chinese. The english language choices are at the end of the file.

“Sonny and Cher?” Coulson offers.

“Really?”

“It’s a duet.”

Right, _we’re a duet_ , she thinks.

“Bryan Ferry?”

“Yikes,” Daisy says. 

Coulson nods. “Right answer.”

Oh he’s such a music snob. She knows, she’s seen his record collection. More like she has studied his record collection extensively, back when she had access to it. She wonders where his records are now, now that he is out of the office. Mace didn’t keep the player. It makes her sad for some reason.

But music is important to Coulson.

He wouldn’t take it lightly.

He wouldn’t just...

“Coulson?”

“Yeah?”

He replies but he is distracted, his eyes on the list.

Daisy slips her hand over his left arm, resting her fingers on his wrist. He looks up immediately, a slightly worried questioning expression on his face. She swallows her fears, and just asks.

“Coulson… did you sing that song for me?”

“What?”

“At New Year’s. The Pretenders. Was that for me?”

He nods, very slowly and very purposely.

“Okay,” she says.

She stands up from her seat and she can see in Coulson’s panicked eyes that he fears he has said the wrong thing, said the wrong thing. What a dumbass.

Daisy climbs on top of him, legs to each side of him, straddling his lap. Coulson draws back, pressing his body against the back of the couch. But Daisy plants her hands on his shoulders, leaning into him...

“You dumbass,” she says, brushing her lips against his mouth for a moment. “No one had ever done something like that - sing for me.”

“No?”

She shakes her head.

“You’re the first one to do that.”

Coulson frowns furiously at her. “That’s a travesty. What is the world-?”

She cuts him off with a kiss.

Deep, passionate. A really good kiss. Like in a song.

Coulson’s hands fly to grab her by the hips, pull at her shirt, or play with her hair, or all at the same time, like he can’t decide. He seems to know he wants Daisy as close as humanly possible. Good, she thinks, and smiles against his mouth. He can’t go serenading girls with Pretenders songs and then not put his money where his mouth… well, in this case, what his mouth is doing is enough for Daisy.

She licks his bottom lip, making him tremble under her body - it kind of feels like using her powers, uh.

When she pulls back their mouths part with a comical smacking sound. Daisy buries her face in Coulson’s neck for the moment it takes her to laugh at it. He smells nice.

“I don’t think we’re going to do much singing tonight,” he comments, giving the song list by their side a hopeless look.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Daisy says.

“Tomorrow? Why? What-?”

She grins.

“You look like you sing in the shower,” she teases.

Coulson swallows hard, she can feel his whole body getting tense (well, tense- _er_ ) under her.

“You’ve got me,” he says.

She touches her lips to the corner of his mouth. Such an easy way in.

“I’ve got you, babe,” she hums.


End file.
